Abstract:
Literary texts have been gradually integrated as part of the secondary English Language Curriculum in Hong Kong, with the aim of enhancing students’ exposure to the creative and imaginative appeal of language. Despite the effort of curriculum developers, the lack of alignment between curriculum orientations and assessment has caused teachers to resort to a product-oriented grammar translation pedagogy (Chow et al, 2003, 2004; Mok et al, 2006; Tong, 2011; Li, 2012; Benson & Patkin, 2014). To bridge the gaps between curriculum orientations, pedagogy and assessment, this project is designed to equip pre-service teachers in the BEd (EL) programme with the skills to develop Performance-based Assessment (PBA) tools that can elicit more creative and imaginative responses from students. Through three training workshops led by the PI and one of the Co-Is, approximately 20-26 pre-service teachers from the BEd (EL) programme (i.e.nearly all the Year 4 and 5 students from the programme who will do their FE), from three different courses will learn to incorporate features of PBA when designing assessment rubrics and giving feedback on students’ work. The PI and Co-Is will then pay three visits to each pre-service teacher, carry out focused lesson observations and provide feedback on their use of PBA during their Field Experiences (FE). Their FE lessons will be video-taped, and, together with other teaching materials, uploaded to the OCIO streaming server. A new Moodle course for this project will be opened and students in the BEd (EL) programme will carry out peer evaluations and engage in discussions on Moodle to further consolidate their understanding on the PBA approach. The lesson observation data, post-lesson interviews, and documentary analysis of the pre-service teachers’ work in the FE will serve as feedback tools and provide information about their application of PBA. The data collected will be analyzed qualitatively through coding to enhance the understanding of the effectiveness of PBA in promoting curriculum alignment among pre-service teachers in the teaching of literary texts. The results will provide suggestions for enhancing the professional competence of pre-service teachers in times of curriculum innovation. Additionally, it is hoped that the findings of the project can be extended to provide in-service secondary school teachers the insight needed to develop tools of curriculum alignment.
Code:
T0215
Principal Project Supervisors:
Keywords provided by authors:
- Literary texts
- Curriculum innovations
- Creativity
- Performance-based assessment
- Professional competence
Start Date:
01 Aug 2018
End Date:
31 Jul 2019
Status:
Completed
Result:
Preliminary results show that students developed an enhanced understanding of PBA as an assessment for learning strategies in the classroom. At the very beginning, some pre-service teachers associated PBA with theatrical performance. Gradually, they developed their understanding of PBA from notions of TBLT and recognized it as a form of instructionally-oriented assessment that seeks to enhance students’ involvement in the learning and assessment process. The relationship between TBLT and PBA was seen in the pre-service teachers’ use of checklists in different stages of the tasks in the lessons, which constitute a major component of the pre-service teachers’ implementation of PBA. Most pre-service teachers made the checklists shorter in their second and third attempts of implementing PBA since they found that shorter checklists are more comprehensible to students, which helps students to get more focused during the process of self-/ peer-assessment. The pre-service teachers also adopted different learning modes during the process of implementing PBA to engage students in the learning activities. Since they continuously adopt PBA in their lessons, most of them reported that their students are getting used to the idea of self-/ peer-assessment towards the end of the teaching practicum.
Impact:
Through the project activities, students are given more opportunities to interact with their peers. The project’s Moodle site has been seen as a useful resource package for the pre-service teachers in the BEd(EL) secondary stream when doing their assignment in various courses and preparing for the FE. The findings of the project also yield implications for role of assessment in curriculum alignment and the training of pre-service teachers’ language assessment literacy.
The project offers insights into the training of pre-service teachers’ language assessment literacy in need of curriculum alignment for education reforms. The findings provide ample support for classroom-based assessment training for pre-service teachers during the teaching practicum. The importance of students’ affect in pre-service teachers’ decision making related to formative assessment alludes to the need for more practical demonstrations of adopting formative assessment strategies in a wide variety of contexts for pre-service teachers. In order to help explain the myriad of factors influencing pre-service teachers’ learning and adoption of formative assessment strategies in the specific context of their teaching practicum, future case study can be conducted in this inquiry. This work will further inform efforts to promote training for teacher assessment literacy in pre-service teacher education.
Deliverables:
Books/ Book Chapters/ Journal Articles/ Conference Papers
Cheung, A. (2019, May 24). Empowering BEd (EL) students with tools of Curriculum Alignment through adopting. Performance-based Assessment (PBA) in the teaching and learning of literary texts. Poster presentation at Learning and Teaching @ EdUHK Festival 2019, The Education University of Hong Kong. [Poster presentation].
Rogers, J., & Cheung, A. (2020). Pre-service teaching training may perpetuate myths about teaching and learning. Journal of Education for Teaching, 46(3), pp. 417-420. https://doi.org/10.1080/02607476.2020.1766835
Seminars/Presentations/Sharing Sessions
Cheung, A. (2018, August 21) General overview of PBA: how to assess students’ performance other than content, language and organization. Workshop presented at The Education University of Hong Kong. (No of participants: 23 BEd(EL) students)
Cheung, A. (2018, August 24). Practical issues of adopting PBA in the English Language Curriculum in Hong Kong. Workshop presented at The Education University of Hong Kong. (No of participants: 23 BEd(EL) students)
Cheung, A. (2018, August 28). Adopting PBA to give feedback to students in field experience. Workshop presented at The Education University of Hong Kong. (No of participants: 23 BEd(EL) students)
Cheung, A. (2019, May 14). A seminar to let pre-service teachers participating in the project to share their strategies of implementing performance-based assessment. (No of participants: 23 BEd(EL) students)
Cheung, A. (2019, October). Identifying Processes of Curriculum Alignment through Adopting Performance-based Assessment (PBA) in the Teaching and Learning of Literary Texts. Seminar conducted at The Education University of Hong Kong.
Teaching and Learning Resources/ Materials (including online resources)
A new Moodle course for BEd(EL) students
Financial Year:
2018-19
Type:
TDG